


Mistletoe

by supervillainesses



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: F/F, please dc I'm all for Harley and Harvey being best bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supervillainesses/pseuds/supervillainesses
Summary: After getting kicked in the face by Batgirl, arrested right before Christmas, and an unwelcome surprise in the Arkham cafeteria, Harley deserves a kiss under the mistletoe more than anyone. Definitely more than Mr. Two-Sides McSplit-Face laughing it up with Ivy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A little early in the year for a Christmas fic, but then again I wrote this two years ago so really, when is it NOT the right time for Christmas fluff?

            “I’ll teach _you_ how to kick someone in the nose, Batchick! Soon as these cuffs are off I’m gonna mash your face so far into the concrete you’s gonna taste the bottom of the boots of the guys who made the sidewalk, ya tramp!”

            Pam had to admit that, though not always elegantly phrased, Harley did have her own way with words. Her eyebrows were arched high as the officers forced her into the backseat of the squad car beside her. The instant her rear made contact with the seat, her incoherent screaming silenced and she sighed contentedly. It was the subtle things that made it apparent the harlequin was insane.

            “Looks like we’re headin’ back to the ol’ shut-em-up house for the holidays, Red.” Honestly, she seemed almost happy about it. “I get that I’m the only Jew in the joint, but you’d think they’d have some dreidles or a menorah at the Winter Party.”

            “I think you expect a bit much from a facility run by glorified pharmacist technicians and strong-armed varsity flunkies—no offense.”

            “None taken, ya absolutely right.” Harley nodded as the car lurched forward. She twisted around in her seat one last time to pull down her eyelid and stick out her tongue and the caped crusader that kicked her. “Back when I was working there, you’d at least have to take an open book test to pass training. Now I think they just put the book in their hand and tell them they’re square. I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed out our guards for some of them talking gorillas B-Man fights with his League of Muscular Astronauts. Why are there so many talking gorillas, Red? I think that’s weird.”

            “Your nose is still bleeding,” Pam noted before Harley could start in on that list of talking gorillas she was trying to memorize in the way a child tries to memorize the names of Santa’s reindeer. “Let me take a look.”

            They both leaned in, the motion awkward because of their bound hands and the super-tightened seatbelts, but their faces got pretty close. Harley had never been so close to Pam’s eyes before, not really. There was small flecks of gold in the grassy green, the colors reminding her of early summer mornings on grassy hills in Robinson Park as a kid. She giggled a little at the memory and the feeling of Pam’s floral breath across her face. Ivy had a tendency to mouth-breathe on occasion, though Harley couldn’t detect a pattern. Just as she couldn’t detect a pattern to the light spray of freckles across the redhead’s face.

            Harley smiled softly. “Gee, Red. You’re really pretty.”

            Pam, her lips firming shut, pulled away from Harley. “Of course I am.”

            “Nah, I mean _really_ ,” Harley jerked forward, half-choking herself with the seatbelt. “I get that guys say that to ya all the time—well, they usually say _other stuff_ , actually—but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a girl say it to ya without being mean about it. Well, I’m not being mean about it. I just, um, mean it.”

            A quick spurt of color sprung to life in Pam’s cheeks, but disappeared quickly. “Why are you saying it? Is it jealousy? We live together awhile and now it’s time to start envying each other, is that it?”

            “What? Well,” Harley bit her lip, her head still close to Ivy. If it weren’t for the seatbelts, she would be able to rest her head on her shoulder. “I do wish I could be a pretty as you are, sometimes. You’re just so poised, and you always know what to say, and smell really nice, and you can get people to _listen_ to you…but that’s not why I said it! I just…sometimes, it’s good to hear that other people think good things about ya, y’know?”

            “Hey!” Detective Teletubby barked from the driver’s seat. “If you girls are done flirtin’ back there, do me a favor and stifle it! I’m trying to listen to Huey and The Blues here!”

            “We weren’t flirting!” Pam snapped; if she had her hands free, Harley knew she’d have her hands around Bullock’s neck. Could hands so small strangle a neck that wide? “Typical sexist _pig_ thinks that just because two beautiful women—”

            Beautiful?

            “—So much as _talk_ to one another, then they should strip for their _masculine amusement_ ,” there was vitriolic scorn in Ivy’s words. “Does your Commissioner know you speak this way to your female arrestees? Or is he _also_ saddled up in your Good Old Boy routine?”

            Bullock just turned up the radio. Pam eventually gave up the tirade, falling back into her seat with a fluff of red hair. “Your music taste is terrible anyway,” she heard her grumble.

            Harley leaned back and laughed, staring out the window as buildings gave way to old, dying trees (“They never really die, Harl. Not while their roots can still spring them back to life. They’re like the phoenix; they just need a rebirth). There was a warm feeling growing in Harley’s belly. _Beautiful_. Pammy had said it herself. Even if it was for dramatic effect, it was still nice.

            Like Red, Harley was used to her fair share of men calling her numerous things she was sure they considered flattering, instead of stomach-churning. If she had a dime for every other time a man had referred to a few choice parts of her body with the words “sweet” or “tasty,” she could outbid Bruce Wayne at any given auction. The word beautiful, _just_ beautiful, as if the whole thing of her was _beautiful_ , was nothing to sneeze at. Even if Pam didn’t mean it, she still replayed the sound of it over and over as they rode.

            Fighting against her seatbelt, Harley managed to half-lie in the seat so her head could rest on Pam’s shoulder. Though it was probably due to her own restraints, Pam didn’t push her away. But the important thing was she didn’t tell her to get off.

* * *

 

            The week of Christmas brought with it the first prison fight of Harley and Ivy’s stay.

            It figured Ivy was the one to instigate it, however.

            “You greasy little louse!” The words had cut through the hum of the cafeteria. Harley had just entered the room for lunchtime to find Pam standing in the same prison scrubs as the rest of them, but somehow more radiant than any other patient in the room. It was just Ivy’s gift; to always be the showiest flower in the bouquet. “If I had so much as a blade of _grass_ I would rip your rotten little head off and mail it express to the Bat.”

            Joker, on the receiving end of Pam’s newest fit, sat nonchalantly back in his chair, arms folded behind his head as he blatantly ignored her. Harley wondered if she could muster up enough strength to bring the green beans on Joker’s plate to sentience.

            “Puddin’?” Harley approached the table, standing between him and Ivy, her back to the other woman. If Joker meant to strike, she knew how to hold herself so it would hurt less, Red didn’t.

            On the table, a tray was placed, bearing only a single item. It looked funny; just a little fuzzy square, like a piece of a bearskin rug, only the fur was different, slightly grey… “ _The babies_ ,” Harley gasped, unable to look away from what was clearly a patch of _real_ animal fur on the plate. She didn’t know what churned her stomach more: The sight of the grizzly act, or the neatly folded cardstock displaying a name like a reservation at a wedding table.

            _Harlot Quinn_

            Harley sobbed into her palms and was surprised when someone seized her by the shoulders. Harley stiffened but jerked, sobbing, ready to strike.

            “It’s all right, Harl. I gotcha. I gotcha.”

            Harley relaxed against Pam’s hold. If she hadn’t grabbed on when she did, Harley could imagine herself launching over, right at Puddin’, where she wouldn’t stand a chance to fight back. He had a fork; all Joker needed to fight dirty was a potential weapon, no matter how crude.

            “Oh _ho_ ,” Joker let out a low whistle. The murmuring in the cafeteria halted at the first sound of the Clown Prince speaking. “So my suspicions were true! My dear little _Harlot Quinn_ , making kissy faces with the Fruit Basket. Whatever have I done to earn such disloyalty?”

            “You’re a depraved monster, wearing the skin of a man!” Pam snapped. “What loyalty Harley’s got, damn her for it, isn’t even deserved!”

            “R-Red…”

            “Dent!” Joker reached over and plucked Two-Face down by the collar of his shirt as he’d tried to make an exit from the scene. He hadn’t even put his coin back in his pocket from his decision to leave. “C’mon, Harv! Use the good half of your ugly mug and take a good look at Pammy, here. If you squint just right and scowl just enough you realize she’s a no-good _home wrecker, tease,_ and just the slightest bit _unnatural_. Am I right?”

            Harvey was squinting at Ivy. Pam wanted to launch herself at Joker, to rip out his beady little eyes and feed them to him in a poison martini. Harley, no matter what transgression against the poor girl, would never forgive her.

            He took the empty tray from beneath Pam’s arm. “We need this.”

            With a satisfying crack, Two-Face swung the plastic tray true and struck Joker soundly upside the head. The red plastic snapped clean in half with the force. Feeding on the chaos, the other inmates quickly joined in, and alarms filled the halls of Arkham as Pam led Harley away from the tumult.

            No one was around to stop her from following the pigtailed woman into her cell, where they sat side-by-side on the worn little bed as Harley cried.

            A guard would find them later, curled up and asleep, Harley Quinn safely cocooned in Pamela Isley’s arms. It was common knowledge that Quinn was the only living person entirely immune to Ivy’s toxic state, and Harley was still rather liked by the remaining staff that recalled and lamented her brief stint as an employee in the asylum. All it took was word of what reportedly had been done to Quinn’s pets, and their times together were no longer limited to meals and shifts in the rec room.

            Pam didn’t know what she’d done to warrant her cell transfer, but she was stationed beside Harley now, and the guards were so stupid they didn’t even see that the two women stole to the other’s cell whenever they felt. It was one of those rendezvous, where Harley would sob quietly against Pam’s shoulder in the darkness of Arkham’s walls, when she was able to finally dole out some good news.

            “I spoke to Wesker.”

            Harley sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “You _hate_ Wesker.”

            Pam almost smirked. “This is true. But Wesker is in good with the guards who know how to bend the rules. I’m not, unfortunately.”

            “It’s only ’cause you’re always kissing them,” Harley laughed pathetically. “Don’t see what the big deal is; I wouldn’t mind being k—”

            Harley stopped herself.

            “I had him deliver a request to the Penguin.”

            “How is Ozzy? I heard he got a girlfriend, but she dumped him real bad.”

            “Are you going to let me finish, or not?”

            “Sorry,” Harley lifted her legs from the side of the bed so they could drape over Pam’s legs. “Tell me the _story_ , Red.”

            Pam rolled her eyes, feeling a curious blush creep into her cheeks. “I had Penguin check in on certain matter, one I knew your precious _Puddin’_ wouldn’t allow you to inquire on. Harley, the boys are okay. Bud and Lou were never hurt.”

            Harley gasped, covering her hands with her mouth. Pam’s hand clenched; one of Harley’s had been in her own without her realizing.

            “The babies are a’right?” Harley sobbed delightedly into her hands. “Oh, I can’t believe it! I’m so, so relieved! Thank you, Red.”

            “Don’t got getting too excited,” Pam’s blush increased when Harley planted a dozen grateful kisses on her cheek. “Joker _did_ kill a hyena. He had his goons go to the zoo and snatch one. How he got it into the prison, I don’t know, but that was a real swatch of fur on that plate.”

            Harley blinked rapidly. “So?”

            Pam drew backward. “So? Harley, I know that I’m quite defensive over my plants, but even I realize that they all can’t be guarded 24/7—though they should be. You’ve only got two hyenas…aren’t you the least concerned that madman _killed_ one just to get a rise from you?”

            “No, why?”

            Pam pushed Harley’s legs from her lap, standing from the bed. “You’re telling me that you’re just _okay_ with it?”

            “Well,” Harley squirmed, fiddling with her fingers in an anxious gesture. “I’m not _okay_ with it, but…but Puddin’ ain’t so good with words. He has to get his point across in other ways. But it’s all right; he’d never hurt me, not really. He didn’t hurt the babies, did he?”

            “He _let you believe he had all this time!_ ” Pam bellowed, and two guards zoomed in from either side, ready to budge the instant Pam stuck a toe out of line. “It’s all right, take me away. Put me in my cell. This isn’t what I thought it was. Sorry for the mistake, boys.”

            Harley watched as Pam let the guards take her away, all the while confused at the heavy feeling in her stomach. It was a feeling of wrongness, but she hadn’t done anything. Had she?

* * *

 

            “No, no,” Jervis tutted, making a gesture as if to adjust his hat, which wasn’t there. “The angel. On top of the tree. No, no.”

            Nigma, who was on a step ladder, looked down at Hatter with a deep frown. “And what would _you_ put on top of the tree, you rabid haberdasher?”

            Jervis merely shrugged. “The angel. On top of the tree. No, no.”

            Riddler grasped the round ornament in his hand so hard it shattered. “How is decorating a tree supposed to be _calming_ when I’ve got this guy breathing down my neck?”

            “Could be worse, Question Man,” Harley sighed from the sofa of the rec room. “Y’could be feelin’ like a tree that ain’t got no star at all.”

            “Oh, a _star_ ,” Hatter muttered in that way of his. “A star. On top of the tree. So, so.”

            There was a distinct _twack_ and Jervis let out a cry that made it clear that some form of decoration—likely the angel, at this point—had been thrown at him and made contact. Harley was too distracted to laugh. Joker was in his usual lockdown cell he was always tucked away in after one of his schoolyard fights. Happy Christmas Eve to you, too, sir.

            Pam was across the room, too far away to know that Harley was staring at her, watching as she spoke to Mr. Two-Sides. Harley liked to imagine that Pam was bored out of her wits talking to the two halves of that stitched up guy. So bored that the redhead didn’t even notice the mistletoe that hung above the two of them. So bored that the redhead exited when she saw Harley watching, not even saying goodbye to Split-Head.

            Split-Head, it seemed, was in the mood to talk. He moved from across the room to plop down at the foot of the sofa Harley was stretched out on. Harley barely had time to move her feet before he could sit on them.

            “I’ve got a question for ya, doll.” His gritty voice was always grating it made Harley’s skin crawl, and not in a good way. “Why don’t ya just kiss her a’ready and call it a go?”

            Harley, if possible, turned red all over. “It—it ain’t like that, Harvey.”

            He stared at her a moment, before tossing his head back and laughing. “Sure could’ve fooled me, kid. Listen, y’know Petal and I used to date, eh?”

            Harley crinkled her nose. “ _Maybe_.”

            “Well, lemme tell ya, she ain’t ever got so bothered over anyone before you,” he confided in an undertone, and even Harley knew it was the man-half of Harvey speaking to her, not the broken-half. “I’ve seen fellas come and go from her dozens of times, before and after we went out. Not a one of ’em made her steam like a broccoli the way you do.”

            Harley huffed, folding her arms. “Sounds like she hates me.”

            “Nah, it doesn’t.” Harvey shook his head. “Slick, though she is, and coy as the devil is clever, the damnable dame has a jealous streak. I’ve only seen it once, when one of her chrysanthemum plants took a liking to me after I’d watered it for her for a week. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was half the reason she wanted to do me in.”

            “Jealous?” Harley echoed. “Jealous of what? Red’s pretty, and smart, and sweet, and gentle, and—”

            “Sweet and gentle?” Harvey grunted, and Harley knew she was speaking to both halves now. “What Pamela Isley are you talking about?”

            “Wasn’t she all buttered up to you when you guys were a, y’know, thing?”

            “Pamela Isley was sweet in the way a fist is compared to a knife. If she’s good to you, kid, then I think we’re back to square one. Just kiss her already.”

            He left Harley alone to stew in her thoughts, with a soundtrack of Nigma pelting Jervis with ornaments playing on repeat.

* * *

 

            On the night of the Winter Party, the Arkham staff had ever-so-kindly put up some streamers around the room (black) to accompany the snack food (crackers and some kind of pale cheese that no one wanted to touch). It was clear that the staff members gave hardly a damn about the convicts they kept under their noses.

            It was just like yesterday. Harley lay stretched out on the sofa, belly down, this time, and watched as Harvey and Ivy spoke together. For someone who was suggesting Harley plant one on her—a pun she couldn’t believe the Double-Sided Guy didn’t use—he was touching her shoulder a lot, and making her laugh real good at a joke. It wasn’t fair; Harley could make her laugh, too.

            All the while, that mistletoe hung above her head, and she was completely unaware. Didn’t it make her angry? Didn’t she see it? Smell it? _Sense_ it? Maybe Red’s ability to sniff out plant life had rubbed off on Harley. Maybe that was the reason why she got out of her moping position. Maybe that was how Harley ended up jumping to snatch up the plant.

            She landed in Harvey and Ivy’s laps, the mistletoe safely in hand. She smiled up at Pam.

            “Oh,” she laughed nervously at Pam and Harvey’s shocked expressions. “Plastic. Oops.”

            Harvey took the mistletoe from Harley’s hands, shaking with fear at Pam’s reaction. She’d been in a bad state when they’d last spoken. Suddenly landing on her could only make it worse. She’d never hit, like Mr. J would, but somehow her anger hurt so much worse. There was no way to heal pain that was inside, not outside.

            “Y’know what, though?” Harvey chuckled. “It still works, though. I guess you’ve earned your kiss, kid. Pucker up.”

            “ _Harvey_ , that’s—”

            Harley cut Pam off with a kiss so forceful their teeth bumped together. She pulled away, a smile wide on her face at the sight of Red living up to her given namesake.

            Two-Face took it upon himself to clear out the room, pausing to wink with his good eye at the door as he left Harley and Ivy alone.

            “Merry Christmas, Red.”

            “Merry Christmas, Harl,” Ivy was just able to say, before Harley took the mistletoe from where Harvey left it, and held it above them. “Again?”

            “Red,” Harley pouted, “it’s _tradition_.”


End file.
